As a Northerner, I’ll admit my heart tends to sink when I hear the term ‘Northern writing’, which so often narrowly defines subject matter and serves to put authors in their place. Cue cringeworthy stereotypes on the page and patronising pats on the head from critics.
Sure enough, Middlesbrough-born Louise Powell’s debut novel is set in a depressed former mining community in County Durham and centres on the local independent greyhound racing track. But Underdogs is truly transportive, immersing the reader in the sights, sounds and smells (“Old Spice and Bovril and deodorant”, “fag smoke, talc and Brut; dogs and sweat and Newcastle Brown Ale”) of the unfamiliar and now lost world of ‘flapping’ – and doing so in the local dialect.
At its heart are 10-year-old narrator George and his unemployed father Reg, struggling under the crushing weight of poverty and bereavement. Salvation seems at hand when Bertie, a blinged-up ex-miner-done-good and Robin Hood figure, proposes Reg’s participation in his gambling scam – but can they escape being rumbled? Powell ratchets up the soap opera tension as past tragedies and bitter personal rivalries overshadow any on-track drama. A touching tale of familial bonds and ruptures in a tough world, Underdogs is raw and rich in humanity.
